Neuropsychological Rehabilitation: A Modular Handbook

Rehabilitation is a process whereby people, who have been injured by injury or illness, work together with health service staff and others to achieve their optimum level of physical, psychological, social and vocational well-being (McLellan, 1991). It includes all measures aimed at reducing the impact of handicapping and disabling conditions and at enabling disabled people to return to their most appropriate environment (WHO, 1986; Wilson, 1997). It also includes attempts to alter impairment in underlying cognitive and brain systems by the provision of systematic, planned experience to the damaged brain (Robertson & Murre, 1999). The above views apply also to neuropsychological rehabilitation, which is concerned with the assessment, treatment and natural recovery of people who have sustained an insult to the brain.

Neuropsychological rehabilitation is influenced by a number of fields both from within and without psychology. Neuropsychology, behavioural psychology and cognitive psychology have each played important roles in the development of current rehabilitation practice. So too have findings from studies of neuroplasticity, linguistics, geriatric medicine, neurology and other fields. Our discipline, therefore, is not confined to one conceptual framework; rather, it has a broad theoretical base.

We hope that this broad base is reflected in the modular handbook. The first book was by Roger Barker and Stephen Dunnett which set the scene by talking about "Neural repair, transplantation and rehabilitation". The second title, by Josef Zihl, addressed visual disorders after brain injury. The most recent book by Barbara Wilson, Camilla Herbert and Agnes Shiel focussed on behavioural approaches to rehabilitation. Future titles will include volumes on specific cognitive functions such as language, memory and motor skills, together with social and personality aspects of neuropsychological rehabilitation. Other titles will follow as this is the kind of handbook that can be added to over the years.

Although each volume will be based on a strong theoretical foundation relevant to the topic in question, the main thrust of a majority of the books will be the development of practical, clinical methods of rehabilitation arising out of this research enterprise.

The series is aimed at neuropsychologists, clinical psychologists and other rehabilitation specialists such as occupational therapists, speech and language pathologists, rehabilitation physicians and other disciplines involved in the rehabilitation of people with brain injury.

Neuropsychological rehabilitation is at an exciting stage in its development. On the one hand, we have a huge growth of interest in functional imaging techniques to tell us about the basic processes going on in the brain. On the other hand, the past few years have seen the introduction of a number of theoretically driven approaches to cognitive rehabilitation from the fields of language, memory, attention and perception. In addition to both the above, there is a growing recognition from health services that rehabilitation is an integral part of a health care system. Of course, alongside the recognition of the need for rehabilitation is the view that any system has to be evaluated. To those of us working with brain injured people including those with dementia, there is a feeling that things are moving forward. This series, we hope, is one reflection of this move and the integration of theory and practice.

New and Published Books

1-6 of 6 results in Neuropsychological Rehabilitation: A Modular Handbook

An injury to the brain can affect virtually any aspect of functioning and, at the deepest level, can alter sense of self or the essential qualities that define who we are. In recent years, there has been a growing body of research investigating changes to self in the context of brain injury....

2nd Edition

This thoroughly updated and extended edition covers the various cerebral visual disorders acquired after brain injury, as well as the rehabilitation techniques used to treat them. These are described within a brain plasticity framework, using data from single and group case studies along with...

Rehabilitation provides a core concept around which to organise support, intervention and care for people with impairments in memory and other cognitive functions. This book introduces a conceptual framework and rationale for the application of a neuropsychological rehabilitation approach for...

Optimising Rehabilitation Procedures

The potential of behavioural approaches for improving the lives of people with acquired brain injury is immense. Here that potential is laid out and explored with a thoroughgoing regard for clinical practice and the theoretical frameworks that underpin that practice. This book will prove an...

Despite a long research tradition in visual neuroscience, the rehabilitation of cerebral visual deficits has, until recently, been neglected. This book is the first to report systematic observations on spontaneous recovery of cerebral visual deficits after acquired brain injury, and the outcome of...

This book begins with a synopsis of experimental work underlying degeneration and recovery in the nervous system, which is then discussed in the context of strategies to repair the central nervous system (CNS) and peripheral nervous system (PNS). The major part of the book is given over to the...